Saturday, November 26, 2011

Martin Luther King, Jr. and #OccupyWallStreet

The war in VietNam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. We will be marching and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. [...] With such activity in mind, the words of John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken — by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. When machines and computers, profits and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs re-structuring. A true revolution of values will soon look easily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries and say: "This is not just." It will look upon our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

[...]

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wombs of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch-anti-revolutionaries.

Caturday!

Confession of the week: things have been very very very stressful at La Casa de Los Gatos. It's Yahrzeit time for Dad and Zingiber, who passed over the Rainbow Bridge just a smidge over a year ago.

Bandicoot decided to celebrate by developing a bad cold which blocked his little tubes, so his eyes were running, and getting ooky and almost-infectable, which means daily (sometimes twice or thrice) eye-washings and cleanings. He's a good little trouper, especially since he gets rewarded with some horrendously stinky vitamin treat. It seems to be helping a bit with the eyes, but Jesus what a fucking pain. All the others want one too, or at least want to know what's going on, which doesn't help.

We have surgery coming up in three weeks (slightly less). House has to be clean, cats medicated and doctored, garden put up for the winter, books put away so someone on crutches can get around. It's minor surgery but still fucking painful. Actually, it's fucking painful now, so what's the diff? Anyway. Nothing like icing your knee during winter. Still need to make several gallons of soup so I won't have to try to get down the stairs on crutches to cook dinner. Not that it helped the last time. I dropped a bunch of weight from being vomitous all the time. Can't take pain medication, it just makes me feel gross and pukey and brainless. Hopefully, I can smoke pot for the pain. Well, not *smoke* as such, since we quit smoking this year, for good and finally.

Meanwhile one of my nearest and dearest has just had massive surgery for a very rare disease. Called the hospital late last night, out of surgery (must have been about 9 hours, jezus how can they cut on anybody for that long?), in recovery, things are looking good. Now for rest, rehab, and recovery.

I have PT to look forward to starting mid-December. The knee is killingly painful now with pain running across the bone, not just the muscles, which makes me wonder just what the fuck is going on. X-rays and MRIs show the implant is holding firm. So why the fuck is it so painful? The pain is crippling my foot, goddamnit, I can't put the weight on the foot, flat. And the small muscles of the ankle seem to be working at odds. The nerves aren't firing properly, so the foot drags. What a joy! Walking becomes an exercise in coordination. Are the toes lifting high enough? Or is there a chance they're not lifting properly, which means they'll catch and drag, and possibly twist all the ankle muscles again? The swelling from the last spectacular twisting hasn't quite subsided yet.

Anyway. Fun and games at the old homestead. Countdown to surgery. On the PLUS side, I'll get to watch LOTS of films. And I've read close to 100 books this year, so I needn't feel too bad about being a brainless vegetable for the end of the year. On the MINUS side, Gojira Helen Wheels is *already* sleeping on the knee or ankle every chance she gets. We'll have to get the Old Protective Plastic Bucket out to guard against her. What a fucking brat.

Also, Bandicoot has a new, irritating habit: Licking Teh Hoomin. He will lick my hand (or nose) for up to an hour, if I let him (I don't; his breath smells like fish). I've taken to wearing my sleeves down over my fingertips. Thank god for winter (did anybody think they would EVER hear me be grateful for the cold? Yes. It's official. I am fucking grateful for the cold).

When he can't lick me, he licks my mouse. Yes, THAT mouse. The electronic, wireless, purchased from fucking Radio Shack or whatever guaranteed to be mouse-flavour-free mouse. Or my little table for my laptop. Pica?

Friday, November 11, 2011

Anniversaries

You know what day it is. A day when we should all be remembering those young men and women that we have repeatedly sent into harm's way, by lying to them, telling them they were fighting for their country, or democracy, or freedom, or some such other bullshit.

A day when we should be weeping over the fact that so many of them come home broken in body and mind to a nation that seems to have forgotten all about them, except when it comes time to buy yellow ribbon magnets from China for a dollar or two. A day when we should be doing something about the fact that SO fucking MANY of our vets are unemployed, or homeless, or struggling to get by.

Today is all those things. If you know a veteran? Give them a hug or a thank you, call them up to say hello, take them to lunch or dinner, offer to help them out with something, anything. It could be something as small as picking up groceries, babysitting their kids, polishing their resume, setting up their computer, taking their damn dog for a walk. Do something. Anything. Just to let them know you appreciate what they went through while they were sweltering in a trench somewhere getting their ass shot off or getting water tainted with decaying corpses and rotting food thanks to George Bush, Dick Cheney, KBR, and/or Halliburton.

These men and women risked their lives and their minds and bodies to do what they saw as their duty to the nation. You don't have to agree with their politics or their service to do them the kindness you would do any other human being. Step up and do your bit for them, and remember, in one month's time, a WHOLE LOTTA them will be coming home from Iraq.

If you're a business owner, you can help by hiring them. If you're working for a big corporation, ask them if they're interested in hiring veterans. If you work at a restaurant or other service/retail business, ask your employers if they will offer vets discounts, then publicize those discounts. Everything you do helps.

And, if you're a voter? Get your ass out there, register to vote, make sure all the vets you know are registered to vote. They don't have to vote for YOUR candidate. Just make sure they vote. Offer to drive them to the polls if they're disabled. Help them register by mail. But make DAMN sure they don't vote for Mittens Romneycare, because that miserable plastic-faced billionaire bastard is talking about PRIVATIZING the VA. After G.W. Bush's disastrous experiment with Walter Reed, I don't EVAH want to hear about veterans lying in pools of their own piss while rats run across the floor and mold spreads from leaky ceilings.

Today is also a very sad day here at La Casa de Los Gatos. It is the anniversary of my father's death. Dad fought in WW II, and was on the losing side, initially, so he spent some time as a POW. He came back from the war deaf in one ear, due to shrapnel, and with an enlarged heart. He lived a long, and mostly healthy, life, but his war stories were enough to give us kids nightmares for weeks. And I know he suffered from PTSD, although he was a gentle man who turned it inward into deep depression rather than outward into beating his wife and kids.

Goodbye, Dad. I still miss you so very much. I think I always will. You loved me and you taught me to love myself, even if the lesson took a long, long time to root itself.

Today is also the anniversary of Zingiber's death. For 14 long years, he was with me every moment, a fat, silly, fearful, neurotic, sweet, affectionate, jealous, possessive, overweight lump of love. I miss him every single day. No one has ever loved me the way that fool did. No matter what I did to him — and here I have to admit, shamefacedly, that there were times when he got on my very last nerve, and I did yell at him and torment him in various small ways — he never, ever held anything against me, not even for a second. I could attribute this to his complete and total brainlessness, I guess, but every night when he put his fat, furry little head on the pillow next to me and breathed softly and warmly into my ear, I realized that he might have been as stupid as the day was long, but that was real love in those big green eyes.

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Fuck you very much, Republicans

I don't know if anyone else is paying attention to Herb Cain's harassapalooza, but srsly. This has to be THE fucking awfulest Republican presidential candidate lineup EVAH. First he claims it's all a bunch of lies, then he claimed he remembered exactly what happened and it was a whole lotta nothing, and now three OTHER women have come out to say he harassed them TOO. And his wife is still the Invisible Woman (has anyone seen Mrs. Herman Cain? IS there a Mrs. Herman Cain?).

Meanwhile, Rick DinglePerry's on some kinda good drugs, and I mean GOOD drugs, that motherfucker wants to lerve on New Hampshire so bad he can hardly even stand up anymore. I'll post that viral video in a day or so. Why the fuck not? It sure as hell makes me want to gag something horrible. Might's well share the pain. Y'all enjoy this heah now. And just remember, it COULD be worse. You could already be having to call one of these dumb motherfuckers "Mister President." Dear god, please, no.

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

CaturWeen

Yes, I missed Caturday. I went out of town over the week, and was fucking exhausted by the time I got back, not to mention hung-over as fuck-all. And I missed Hallowe'en, too. Just be grateful I didn't see fit to inflict Jesusween* on ya.

* Warning: StephenColbert Alert.

Things are tough all around, no need to dwell on what can't be cured, since it must be endured. La Casa de Los Gatos has never treated the blog as a place to whine about the many misfortunes to which flesh is heir. Suffice it to say that life sucks, and I'm sure yours no less than mine. We resign ourselves to updating our book list with book reviews for the year so far, and film reviews, over at the sisterblog. In the meantime, we stand in solidarity with #Occupy and the Indignados who #Occupy everywhere. Sadly, ex-Marine Scott Olsen was injured when Oakland Mayor Jean Quan decided to loose the police on the harmless Indignados there. We'll be keeping an eye on the #Occupation, but for today, we're weaseling out with this, for your amusement: